Conventionally, the processing of a black-and-white photographic material comprises a development step, a fixing step, and a washing step. The processing of color photographic materials comprises a color development step, a bleaching step, a fixing step, and a washing step.
Conventionally, the processing steps are carried out in processing tanks. The photographic materials are transported from one tank to the next by means of belts that have a tendency to carry over chemicals from one processing bath to the next one. This bath pollution by carry-over impairs the efficiency of the processing baths. In particular, with polluted baths, the sensitometry of photographic materials becomes uneven.
In conventional processing methods, monitoring of processing solutions is required at all process steps in order to measure the activity of these processing solutions. By this monitoring the processing chemicals can be renewed as they are consumed by the process.
Conventional processing of photographic materials requires the use of large volumes of processing solutions, which later have to be recycled or destroyed. The recycling or destruction of these solutions causes numerous problems, in particular concerning environmental protection. These problems are growing more acute as the standards of chemical effluent disposal are becoming increasingly stringent.
Photographic processing systems exist that use reduced amounts of processing solution. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,752,121 (Earle et al) describes a device to coat photographic processing solutions that can-be equipped with means to heat the photographic material. This system allows the volumes of processing solutions needed for the photographic material processing to be substantially reduced.
However, when these methods of surface application of processing solutions are used, variability of sensitometric data is noted.
The object of this invention is to provide a device for the processing of a photographic material by surface application that affords an improved efficiency and reproducibility of sensitometric data.